Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  114. Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865, ed. Dorothy Lamon Teillard (2nd ed.; Washington, DC: Published by the editor, 1911), 15.

  115. Robert H. Browne, Abraham Lincoln and the Men of His Time (2 vols.; Cincinnati: Jennings and Pye, 1901), 1:517; Alonzo J. Grover’s reminiscences in Browne, Every-Day Life of Lincoln, 2nd ed., 249.

  116. Letter by Zebina Eastman, unidentified clipping, Eastman Scrapbook, ICHi.

  117. Samuel Willard, “Personal Reminiscences of Life in Illinois, 1830 to 1850,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society 11 (1906):86.

  118. Lincoln to Joshua F. Speed, Springfield, 24 Aug. 1855, CWL, 2:320.

  119. John W. Bunn, statement made to Jesse W. Weik, in Jesse W. Weik, The Real Lincoln: A Portrait, ed. Michael Burlingame (1922; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 198.

  120. William Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln, ed. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis (1889; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 232–233.

  121. Lincoln took notes on Douglas’s speech and may have here rendered his words more accurately than the Peoria Daily Union, which reported that the Little Giant said: “They [settlers in Kansas] were permitted to legislate upon every subject affecting the white man, but were to be told that they had not sufficient intelligence to legislate for the black man.” Peoria Daily Union, 24 Oct. 1854, in B. C. Bryner, Abraham Lincoln in Peoria, Illinois (2nd ed.; Peoria, IL: Lincoln Historical Publishing Company, 1926), 155–156.

  122. Chicago Tribune, 30 May 1857.

  123. Springfield correspondence by W., 4 Oct., Chicago Democrat, 9 Oct. 1854.

  124. CWL, 2:247–276.

  125. Autobiography written for John Locke Scripps [ca. June 1860], ibid., 4:67.

  126. Illinois State Register (Springfield), 28 Sept. 1854.

  127. Horace White, “Abraham Lincoln in 1854,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, 1908 (Springfield: Illinois State Journal, 1909), 10; White in William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Lincoln’s Herndon, ed. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis (1889; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 388–389.

  128. Springfield correspondence by W., 4 Oct. 1854, Chicago Journal, 9 Oct. 1854.

  129. White, Life of Trumbull, 39.

  130. Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 10 Oct. 1854; Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 227–228.

  131. “Personal Reminiscences of the Late Abraham Lincoln by a contributor to the ‘Bulletin,’ ” San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 22 Apr. 1865; Illinois State Register (Springfield), 6 Oct. 1854; Springfield correspondence by W., 4 Oct., Chicago Democrat, 9 Oct. 1854.

  132. Illinois State Register (Springfield), 16, 9 Oct. 1854.

  133. “Personal Reminiscences of the Late Abraham Lincoln, by a contributor to the ‘Bulletin,’ ” San Francisco Bulletin, 22 Apr. 1865.

  134. Ward H. Lamon, The Life of Abraham Lincoln from His Birth to His Inauguration as President (ghostwritten by Chauncey Black; Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1872), 354.

  135. Robert Boal’s undated reminiscence, Bryner, Lincoln in Peoria, 33–34.

  136. CWL, 2:276–283.

  137. Peoria Press, 21 Oct. 1854.

  138. Peoria Republican, 20 Oct. 1854.

  139. Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 230.

  140. Henry C. Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, ed. Paul M. Angle (1892; Caldwell, ID: Caxton, 1940), 54, 55.

  141. Joliet Signal, 14 Nov. 1854, in Arthur Charles Cole, The Era of the Civil War, 1848–1870 (vol. 3 of The Centennial History of Illinois, ed. Clarence Walworth Alvord; Springfield: Illinois Centennial Commission, 1919), 133.

  142. New York Tribune, 10 Nov. 1854.

  143. Palmer to Lyman Trumbull, Carlinville, 11 Jan. 1856, Trumbull Papers, DLC.

  144. Lincoln to Richard J. Oglesby, Springfield, 8 Sept. 1854, Roy P. Basler, ed., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, First Supplement, 1832–1865 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973), 24.

  145. Springfield correspondence, 7 Oct., Chicago Journal, 12 Oct. 1854.

  146. George Gage to Lincoln, McHenry, 4 Oct. 1854, AL MSS DLC. Lincoln’s letter to Gage is not extant.

  147. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 149, and “Abraham Lincoln: A Study from Life,” Arena 19 (Apr. 1898):479–480.

  148. Lincoln to Judd, Springfield, 9 Dec. 1859, CWL, 3:505.

  149. Lincoln’s remarks to General Benjamin Welch, memorandum by John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 25 Oct. 1860, Michael Burlingame, ed., With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860–1865 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 7.

  150. Horace White to Lincoln, Springfield, 25 Oct. 1854, AL MSS DLC.

  151. Richard L. Wilson to Lincoln, Chicago, 20 Oct. 1854, ibid.

  152. Randolph to Lincoln, Macomb, 29 Sept. 1854, ibid.

  153. Jonas to Lincoln, Quincy, 16 Sept. 1854, ibid.

  154. Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 231.

  155. Lincoln to Hoyt, Clinton, 10 Nov. 1854, CWL, 2:286.

  156. Lincoln to Scammon, Clinton, 10 Nov. 1854, Basler, ed., Collected Works of Lincoln, First Supplement, 25.

  157. Lincoln to Harding, Clinton, 11 Nov. 1854, CWL, 2:286.

  158. Lincoln to Henderson, Springfield, 27 Nov. 1854, ibid., 2:288.

  159. Lincoln to Joseph Gillespie, Springfield, 1 Dec. 1854, ibid., 2:290.

  160. Shields to Lanphier, Belleville, 30 Dec. 1854, Lanphier Papers, IHi.

  161. Lawrence B. Stringer, unpublished biography of Lincoln, 160, IHi.

  162. David Davis to Lincoln, Bloomington, 27 Dec. 1854, AL MSS DLC.

  163. Aurora Guardian, 11 Jan. 1855.

  164. Rock River Democrat, 9 Jan. 1855.

  165. Charles H. Ray to Elihu B. Washburne, Chicago, 29 Dec. 1854, Washburne Papers, DLC.

  166. Lincoln to Ichabod Codding, Springfield, 27 Nov. 1854, CWL, 2:288.

  167. Chicago Free West, 30 Nov. 1854.

  168. Ibid., 14 Dec. 1854.

  169. Joliet Signal, 19 Dec. 1854.

  170. Lincoln to Washburne, Springfield, 11 and 14 Dec. 1854, CWL, 2:293.

  171. Eastman to Washburne, Chicago, 14 Dec. 1854, Washburne Papers, DLC.

  172. Anson S. Miller to Washburne, Rockford, 18 Dec. 1854, ibid.

  173. Washburne to Lincoln, Washington, 19 Dec. 1854, AL MSS DLC; Washburne to Eastman, Washington, 19 Dec. 1854, Eastman Papers, ICHi.

  174. Herndon to Eastman, Springfield, 6 Feb. 1866, copy, Albert J. Beveridge Papers, DLC.

  175. Herndon to Caroline Dall, Springfield, 3 Jan. 1867 [misdated 1866], Dall Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  176. Zebina Eastman to Herndon, Bristol, England, 2 Jan. 1866, HI, 149–150.

  177. Charles H. Ray to Elihu B. Washburne, North Norwich, New York, 16 and 24 Dec. 1854, Washburne Papers, DLC.

  178. Washburne to Lincoln, [Washington], 21 Dec. 1854, AL MSS DLC.

  179. Washburne to Lincoln, Washington, 17 January 1855, ibid.

  180. Charles H. Ray to Elihu B. Washburne, Springfield, 12 Jan. 1855, Washburne Papers, DLC.

  181. CWL, 2:301.

  182. Jesse O. Norton to Lincoln, Washington, 20 Dec. 1854, 20 Jan. 1855, AL MSS DLC.

  183. Reminiscences of Thomas J. Henderson, typescript, p. 10, Ida M. Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  184. Washburne to Lincoln, Washington, 26 Dec. 1854, AL MSS DLC.

  185. Abraham Smith to Lincoln, Ridge Farm, Illinois, 31 May 1858, ibid.

  186. Washburne to Lincoln, Washington, 12 Dec. 1854, ibid.

  187. Lincoln to Washburne, Springfield, 19 Dec. 1854, CWL, 2:295.

  188. Lincoln to Norton, Springfield, 16 Feb. 1855, Roy P. Basler and Christian O. Basler, eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln: Second Supplement, 1848–1865 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 9.

  189. Washburne to Zebina Eastman, Washington, 19 Dec. 1854, Eastman Papers, ICHi.

  190. Li
ncoln to Thomas J. Henderson, Springfield, 15 Dec. 1854, CWL, 2:293–294.

  191. Yates to Lincoln, Washington, 22 Dec. 1854, AL MSS DLC.

  192. Joliet Signal, 9 Jan. 1855.

  193. Reminiscences of Elijah M. Haines in Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln (2nd ed.; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 163.

  194. Douglas to James W. Sheahan, Washington, 18 Dec. 1854 and 6 Feb. 1855, Johannsen, ed., Letters of Douglas, 333.

  195. Shields to Charles Lanphier, Washington, 12 Jan. 1855, Lanphier Papers, IHi.

  196. J. W. Sheahan to Charles Lanphier, Chicago, 17 Jan. 1855, ibid.

  197. Allen to Trumbull, Alton, 19 Jan., 14 June 1866, Trumbull Papers, DLC.

  198. Quincy Whig, n.d., copied in the Chicago Tribune, 23 Feb. 1855.

  199. Chicago Daily Democrat, 6 Feb. 1855.

  200. Lincoln to Washburne, Springfield, 9 Feb. 1855, CWL, 2:305.

  201. Charles H. Ray to Elihu Washburne, Springfield, 12 Jan. 1855, Washburne Papers, DLC.

  202. Mary N. Stuart to Elizabeth T. Stuart, Springfield, 28 Jan. 1855, Stuart-Hay Papers, IHi.

  203. Richard J. Oglesby to Richard Yates, Decatur, 27 Jan. 1855, Yates Papers, IHi.

  204. John M. Palmer to his wife, Springfield, 31 Jan. 1855, Palmer Papers, IHi.

  205. Clark E. Carr, The Illini: A Story of The Prairies, (Chicago: McClurg, 1905), 176.

  206. Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois: From its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847, ed. Rodney O. Davis (1854; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 272–273.

  207. Gustave Koerner to John D. Caton, Vandalia, 17 Aug. 1846, Caton Papers, DLC.

  208. Lincoln to Yates, Springfield, 14 Jan. 1855, Basler, ed., Collected Works of Lincoln, First Supplement, 26.

  209. Springfield correspondence, [8 Feb. 1855], Chicago Tribune, 13 Feb. 1855.

  210. Chicago Weekly Democrat, 11 Aug. 1855.

  211. Lincoln to Jesse O. Norton, Springfield, 16 Feb. 1855, Basler and Basler, eds., Collected Works of Lincoln, Second Supplement, 10.

  212. New York Tribune, 9 Feb. 1855.

  213. Chicago Free West, 15 Feb. 1855.

  214. Chicago Tribune, 9 Feb. 1855.

  215. Lincoln to Washburne, Springfield, 9 Feb. 1855, CWL, 2:306.

  216. Lyman Trumbull to Salmon P. Chase, Alton, 23 Mar. 1855, Chase Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

  217. Johannsen, Douglas, 464.

  218. Chicago Democratic Press, n.d., copied in the Chicago Tribune, 10 Feb. 1855.

  219. Lincoln to William H. Henderson, Springfield, 21 Feb. 1855, CWL, 2:306–307.

  220. Herndon, “Lincoln’s Ambition,” H-W MSS DLC.

  221. E. B. Washburne, “Abraham Lincoln in Illinois,” North American Review, 1885, 316.

  222. Joseph C. Howell to Yates, Springfield, 11 Feb. 1855, Yates Papers, IHi.

  223. LeRoy H. Fischer, ed., “Samuel C. Parks’s Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln,” Lincoln Herald 68 (Spring 1966):11.

  224. Gillespie to [M. D. Hardin], Edwardsville, 22 Apr. 1880, Hardin Family Papers, ICHi.

  225. Washington correspondence, 30 Sept. [1892?], Chicago Evening Post, clipping in the Lincoln Collection, Vertical File, “Reminiscences,” folder 3, IHi.

  226. White, Trumbull, 45.

  227. R. E. Hoyt reported that Lincoln said this while riding on a train between Springfield and Decatur. Unidentified letter, probably in a newspaper, Chicago, 4 Oct. [no year indicated], copy of a fragment, Trumbull Papers, IHi.

  228. Fischer, ed., “Parks’s Reminiscences of Lincoln,” 11.

  229. Frank G. Carpenter, “From Plowboy to Senator: Shelby Cullom Talks of His Career,” Chicago Sunday Times-Herald, 3 Nov. 1895, p. 47.

  230. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 150.

  231. Parks’s statement for Herndon, [1866], HI, 538.

  232. Speech of James Matheny in the fall of 1856, Chicago Weekly Times, 1 July 1858.

  233. David Davis to Julius Rockwell, Bloomington, Illinois, 4 Mar. 1855, Davis Papers, DLC.

  234. Illinois State Register, n.d., copied in the Ottawa Free Trader, 17 Feb. 1855; Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 13 Feb. 1855.

  235. Abraham Smith to Lincoln, Ridge Farm, Illinois, 31 May 1858, AL MSS DLC.

  236. Gillespie to Lincoln, Edwardsville, 6 June 1856, H-W MSS DLC.

  237. Jean Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 150; Mary Lincoln to Leonard Swett, n.p., 12 Jan. [1867], in Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner, eds., Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972), 406; Anson G. Henry to his wife, [Washington], [18?] Feb. 1863, in Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union: Public and Private Meanings (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 76.

  238. Julia Jayne Trumbull to Lyman Trumbull, Springfield, 14 Apr. and 5 May 1856, Trumbull Family Papers, IHi.

  239. Julia Trumbull to Lyman Trumbull, Chicago, 12 Aug. 1860, Trumbull Family Papers, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan; Mrs. Norman B. Judd, undated interview with Ida Tarbell, Ida M. Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  240. Mary Lincoln to Anson G. Henry, Chicago, 26 July 1865, Turner and Turner, eds., Mary Todd Lincoln, 264.

  241. Norman B. Judd interviewed by John G. Nicolay, Washington, 28 Feb. 1876, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 45–46.

  242. John H. Bryant to Lyman Trumbull, Princeton, Illinois, 12 Feb. 1857, Trumbull Papers, DLC.

  243. Washington correspondence, 30 Sept. [1892?], Chicago Evening Post, undated clipping in the Lincoln Collection, Vertical File, “Reminiscences,” folder 3, IHi.

  244. Oglesby to Herndon, Springfield, 5 Jan. 1866, HI, 153.

  Chapter 11. “Unite with Us, and Help Us to Triumph”

  1. Lincoln to Joshua Speed, Springfield, 24 Aug. 1855, Roy P. Basler et al., eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln [hereafter CWL] (8 vols. plus index; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), 2:322–323.

  2. David Davis to Julius Rockwell, Bloomington, Illinois, 27 Dec. 1855, Davis Papers, DLC.

  3. Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 23 Nov. 1855.

  4. Lincoln to Lovejoy, Springfield, 11 Aug. 1855, CWL, 2:316–317.

  5. Lyman Trumbull to Owen Lovejoy, Alton, 20 Aug. 1855, Trumbull Family Papers, IHi.

  6. Giddings to Lincoln, Peoria, 18 Sept. 1855, H-W MSS DLC.

  7. Lincoln to George Robertson, Springfield, 15 Aug, 1855, CWL, 2:317–318.

  8. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 24 Aug. 1855, CWL, 2:320-322.

  9. Samuel M. Hitt to David Davis, 4 Nov. 1855, in Willard King, Lincoln’s Manager: David Davis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 109.

  10. David Davis to Julius Rockwell, Bloomington, Illinois, 27 Dec. 1855, Davis Papers, DLC.

  11. Choate to Charles Eames, Boston, 29 June 1855, in Samuel Gilman Brown, ed., The Works of Rufus Choate (2 vols.; Boston: Little, Brown 1862), 1:196.

  12. Pike County Free Press (Pittsfield), 20 Dec. 1855.

  13. Paul Selby to Richard Yates, Jacksonville, 14 Feb. 1856, Yates Papers, IHi.

  14. Pike County Free Press (Pittsfield), 16 Jan. 1856.

  15. Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and the Politics of the 1850s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 227.

  16. Charles H. Ray to Lyman Trumbull, Chicago, 21 Mar. 1856, Trumbull Papers, DLC.

  17. Charles H. Ray to Elihu B. Washburne, Chicago, 4 May [1856] Washburne Papers, DLC.

  18. Frank I. Herriott to Albert J. Beveridge, Des Moines, Iowa, 14 Dec. 1922, Beveridge Papers, DLC.

  19. Schneider in Ezra M. Prince, ed., Bloomington, Illinois, Republican Convention, May 29, 1856 (Transactions of the McLean County Historical Society, vol. 3 [Bloomington: Pantagraph, 1900]), 90.

  20. For the full text of the platform, see Otto R. Kyle, Lincoln in Decatur (New York: Vantage Press, 1957), 139–142.

  21. Schneider in Prince, ed., Bloomington Convention, 90.

  22. Ida
M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (2 vols.; New York: McClure, Phillips, 1902), 1:291.

  23. Illinois State Chronicle (Decatur), 28 Feb. 1856; Benjamin F. Shaw in Prince, ed., Bloomington Convention, 68.

  24. Paul Selby in Tarbell, Life of Lincoln, 1:291.

  25. John Wentworth to Lincoln, Chicago, 21 Oct. 1856, H-W MSS DLC.

  26. New York Herald, 19 Sept. 1860, in Howard Cecil Perkins, ed., Northern Editorials on Secession (2 vols.; New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1942), 1:36.

  27. Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 25 Feb. 1856.

  28. [John M. Scott], “Lincoln on the Stump and at the Bar,” enclosed in Scott to Ida M. Tarbell, Bloomington, 14 Aug. 1895, Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  29. Herndon to Trumbull, Springfield, 24 Apr. 1856, Trumbull Papers, DLC.

  30. Washburne to Yates, Washington, 2 Apr. 1856, Richard Yates and Catherine Yates Pickering, Richard Yates, Civil War Governor, ed. John H. Krenkel (Danville, IL: Interstate Printers, 1966), 116.

  31. Bissell to Trumbull, Belleville, 5 May 1856, Trumbull Papers, DLC.

  32. Herndon to Trumbull, Springfield, 20 May 1856, ibid.

  33. Brown to Lyman Trumbull, Alton, 12 May 1856, ibid.

  34. J. O. Cunningham, “Some Recollections of Abraham Lincoln: Delivered before the Firelands Pioneer Association, at Norwalk, Ohio, July 4, 1907, and reprinted from the Pioneer of Dec. 1909” (pamphlet), 6.

  35. J. O. Cunningham, “The Bloomington Convention of 1856 and Those Who Participated in It,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society 10 (1905):104.

  36. John Locke Scripps, Life of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler and Lloyd Dunlap (1860; Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1961), 121.

  37. Henry Clay Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, ed. Paul M. Angle (1892; Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1940), 92; Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, vol. 1 of A Life of Lincoln, ed. Marion Mills Miller, (2 vols.; New York: Baker and Taylor, 1908), 259.

  38. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 260.

  39. Prince, ed., Bloomington Convention, 160–161.

  40. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 260–261.

  41. Prince, ed., Bloomington Convention, 160–161.

  42. Ibid., 94.